Tokyo Ghoul Live Action Movie Review

UK fans of Tokyo Ghoul will want to keep Wednesday 31st of January free and find a cinema near that that'll be screening the new Tokyo Ghoul Live Action Movie. You can find a screening near you by visiting http://alltheanime.com/cinema.

But is it any good?! We sent Christine off to review the movie to find out.

Software tester by day, gamer by night. Christine's top three anime titles are Attack on Titan, Tokyo Ghoul and Parasyte (There seems to be a pattern here...). She also often enjoys cosplaying as characters from obscure games that she's never played.

Full Story

Fans of Tokyo Ghoul will be delighted to hear that a live action movie of Tokyo Ghoul has been released. For those of you who read the manga or watch the anime, it covers the first arc (volumes 1-3 or episodes 1-8) with Mado and Amon.

For those of you unfamiliar with Tokyo Ghoul, the story is set in a world inhabited by humans and ghouls; Ghouls look human but can only eat the flesh of humans to survive. Our protagonist, Kaneki (Masataka Kubota), finds himself struggling to survive whilst trapped between both worlds. On top of all this, investigators Mado and Amon are on the hunt for ghouls.

Not every scene mimicked the manga, but all the same, they conveyed the same message and feeling that the manga was trying to convey. Additionally, the whole film stayed true to the original story.

The visual effects employed by Kentarô Hagiwara (director) successfully bring Tokyo Ghoul to life with fantastic CGI, rendering vicious-looking Kagunes (the ghouls’ weapons) and displays sufficient gore and violence without requiring censoring (which anime viewers may know is an issue in some versions of the anime). A stand-out visual with the Kagunes was the way in which the movement of pulsating blood was mimicked, accentuating the raw imagery of battle scenes, which is where the true strength of live action vs. anime/manga really shines through.

However, there were moments that would break the immersement; Certain aspects did not translate well from anime to live action. For example, Amon’s weapon, resembling a giant lollipop could look awkward and comical when it was a weapon to be feared. Some of the sound effects were also a bit too obviously overlayed and could sometimes seem a bit slapstick when they did not quite fit the moment, setting the wrong tone for the scene.

Though anime can be usually rife with clumsy and unsubtle exposition, it was kept to a pleasing minimum in this adaptation. On the one hand, this maintained momentum of the film as forced explanations can often seem out of place and slow things down but on the other hand, The storyline could be difficult to follow for some of those who have not seen the manga or anime.

In general, the acting was decent for a live-action anime and enriched the atmosphere but there were some moments of overacting, as if the actors were trying to portray exactly how the anime characters acted which again, did not translate well in live action.. At the same time there were also some chilling moments effectively brought out with truly manic laughter.

I particularly enjoyed a nod to future events in Tokyo Ghoul - keep an eye out for the shadow, you’ll know what I mean when you see it!

Whilst not perfect, Tokyo Ghoul is enjoyable to watch for both fans and non-fans. If you like an interesting, conflicted story with violence and action, then this is certainly worth a watch.

On Wednesday 31st January 2018 the live action movie of Tokyo Ghoul will be hit select cinema screens. To find out if there's a screening near you visit http://alltheanime.com/cinema.
Source: Otaku News